I chuckled. “You sound so midwest right now…”
“Well, I was raised by Christian parents on a farm in a small town. How much more midwest can you get?”
“You have a point. But you still didn’t answer my question,” I pressed. “Do you have feelings for Reese?”
Leo looked off into the distance, his hands fidgeting.
“The world thinks I’m straight,” he said carefully.
“Why do you hide who you are?” I asked.
There was a shift in the energy of our conversation; it had gone from lighthearted teasing to something far more serious. The change was palpable.
“Do your parents know?” I asked.
“No. No one knows. No one except my friend who’s been pretending to be my girlfriend this entire time.”
“Why?” I asked, unable to wrap my mind about the lie he was living day in and day out. “Don’t you… don’t you date guys?”
“Sometimes,” he said, his eyes staring at something a million miles away. “It never lasts long, though. You know how L.A. Guys are…”
I chuckled and it lightened the mood. “Yes. I know all too well.”
“Hey,” Leo said in a low tone.
“Hey,” I mocked.
We shared a laugh at that.
“God, Grindr Guys really are the worst aren’t they?” I asked.
“Oh, they’re so bad,” he said. “They’re even worse after you get any kind of fame. Then they don’t even pretend to want to date me—”
“Pretend they want to date you?” I asked. “You’re a celebrity! Everyone wants to date you—”
“No, you don’t get it,” he said. “They want to date Prince Valentine, the character I play. They want to talk about how many Instagram follows I have, the articles that are written about me, if I showed up at such-and-such event, etcetera. They don’t want to date me. They want the image of me.”
“They want to ride the coattails of that fame,” I said. I thought about that for a moment, and decided it must be horrible.
Leo nodded and said, “Yep. It’s easier just not to deal with that type of thing at all, and pretend to be straight.”
“Don’t you feel like you’re living a lie?” I asked. “Life is way easier if you’re out of the closet.”
“I know, and we’re lucky enough to live in a place that accepts it, even celebrates it. We live in a city. But where I’m from, and the way I was raised, being gay was — and is — still seen as something wrong.”
“It’s not though!” I said.
“I know,” he said. “But Charlie, what would I have to gain if I came out of the closet? I’d be able to date more openly, sure, but I’d still run into the same problems. People would still only want to get to know me for my fame. They would still expect me to be Prince Valentine. It’s just easier to make my way through my career this way.”
“But you’re missing out,” I said, almost begging now.
“Missing out on what?”
“On the opportunity to be your true self,” I finished. “For me, it was like I was swimming against some kind of current my entire life. As soon as I came out, it was like turning around and swimming with the current. I was so much happier”
He laughed at that. “I get that and all — believe me, I do. I can sit up here on the shore and see how great it is for other people. But for me, for how deep I am in this Hollywood machine already, I can’t afford to do that. My entire life is based around telling lies for fun and profit. I pretend to be someone else whether the camera is on or off; what’s the difference?”
I felt a sadness unfurl within my soul. “Doesn’t it make you unhappy?”
“Of course it makes me unhappy!” Leo cried. “I want—”
He fixed me with his golden stare like he was looking at me for the first time.
I stopped in my tracks, and some kind of thing that was between fear and excitement seized me.
“You want Reese,” I said, my heart hammering against my chest.
“I want someone else more,” he said, staring deep into my eyes.
It felt like all the wind had been knocked out of me. Then, throwing caution to the wind, I kissed him.
He leaned in and returned my kiss, and suddenly we were tumbling against each other into the rock face.
“I’ve wanted you from the second I saw you,” Leo said, kissing me voraciously.
“Same,” I moaned.
We were all over each other, and I felt a warmth spread through my body that had nothing to do with the rising sun.
He was moving his arms up and down my sides, like he was an addict dying to get his next hit.
“Come back to my trailer?” I asked, looking into his golden eyes.
He bit his lip.
Right at that second, another jogger chose a very inconvenient time to run by.
“Fuck,” Leo said softly, watching the jogger as she passed our hiding place with earbuds in.
Her brown eyes darted over to look at Leo. Recognition came over her face. Then she looked at me.
It was clear from her expression that she didn’t understand the scene; it didn’t fit in with what she knew about Leo Knight.
But if she’d jogged by a few seconds before, that lie that Leo had carefully constructed as a protective shield around him would have been shattered as if it was made of glass.
Then with a stark realization, I knew that he wasn’t ready. He wasn’t ready to come out from behind that shield. His reputation mattered too much to him.
Without another word, we continued walking in silence.
Even though I’d just woken up, I felt exhausted. Exhausted and alone.
We made small talk the rest of the way down, both knowing the sad truth: As long as Leo insisted on staying in the closet, this couldn’t work.
It was a real shame, because he was an amazing kisser.
For the rest of the day, I
